...Kesey had close affiliations with the counterculture that dominated the decade. In its own way One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is the twentieth-century Romantic manifesto, a ululation for the death of the individual before this rebellion went out of style and individualism along with it. This book verbalized what many where thinking: that the truly crazy in the world were the ones who wanted power while the truly sane were the ones who sought to be individuals and rebelled against authority. Because of this pronounced effect on society the book was a major contributor to the backlash against the entire psychiatric system in the early 1960s. As a result, state institutions began reducing their resident numbers and granting admitted patients more rights within the institutions. In addition to this change in the system, the book also pushed the development of more effective anti-psychotic drugs, thus allowing more patients to be treated within their own homes and live normal lives. Yet for many health professionals the book also had a profound negative effect, consequently changing the overall...
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...Ms. Latasha Keith HUMN401-1305B-01: Literature and Film Professor Bonnie Ronson January 19, 2014 Unit 2 Individual Project – Canonical Classics of Literature Section 1- Introduction Ken Kesey’s novel “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is set at an Oregon asylum in the 1950s (NovelGuide.com). The book is a study in the institutional process of the human mind, a critique of Behaviorism and a celebration of humanistic principles while exploring themes of individuality and rebellion against socially imposed repression (NovelGuide.com; SparkNotes.com; CliffsNotes.com). These themes and ideas were the topic of discussion during the publication of this novel because the world was introduced to communism and totalitarian regimes. The novel was published in 1962 and received with immediate success (SparkNotes.com). Section 2 – Biographical Information La Junta, Colorado is the birthplace of novelist Ken Kesey. He was born in 1935 and grew up on a small farm in Oregon and Colorado with his family. He married his high school sweetheart in 1956 and they had three children together (Lone Star College). He received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oregon where he participated in wrestling and theater in 1957 (Lone Star College; SparkNotes.com). In 1959, Kesey enrolled in a creative writing program at Stanford University, the same year where he began volunteering with the Stanford Psychology Department (CliffsNotes.com; Lone Star College). The Stanford Psychology...
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...Judith Guest’s novel, Ordinary People, and movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, directed by Milos Forman, both share a number of traits that correlate with one another . Such traits include vulnerability, perfection, and emotional imbalance. Both Ordinary People and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest captivate the emotions of the audience by addressing these three traits through a point of view, setting, and imagery. Since Ordinary People has two perspectives of a father and son, the point of view in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest focuses on Nurse Ratched’s confrontation with Billy. Furthermore, the vulnerability that Con develops after the death of his brother also applies to Billy when Nurse Ratched humiliated him in front of the other...
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...In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey exposes us to the world of mental illness and mental wards. Kesey exposes us to two therapeutic strategies, external discipline and solipsism. Although Nurse Ratched was technically the medical professional, McMurphy inspired the healing by encouraging self healing and helping them escape Nurse Ratched’s control. As the person who had been on the ward the longest, Nurse Ratched dominated the ward as the leader, even though she was unqualified to hold that level of jurisdiction on the patients’ medical treatment. She controlled the ward by making everything fit into the molds she desired. The ward was the world that she could make perfect with rules, schedules, drugs, staff, and fear. By ordering...
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...The protagonist is usually the main character, the one that tells the story from memory, but in some instances, like in Ken Kesey's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, the main character is simply the narrator. Bromden is sometimes hard to understand,“Chief Bromden narrates, however, in ways that continually confuse the reader until he comes to appreciate how the logic of storytelling characteristic of a native point of view can manipulate different modes of discourse” The real protagonist was Randle McMurphy. Throughout the story, Chief Bromden describes the ward to the reader, but this only classifies him as the narrator. Randle McMurphy, a main character that came to the ward after pleading insanity, teaches the men how to find themselves. He shows them that they aren’t crazy and they could leave the ward when they were all ready, another lesson McMurphy taught the men. Nurse Ratched, an evil women that intimidates and mistreats the men, runs...
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...nurse throughout One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Kesey reveals Nurse Ratched’s authoritative demeanor she holds throughout the ward. The ward runs on a policy-based system that Nurse Ratched has created to ensure the floor works like a machine. But, now that McMurphy has become a part of the ward, he is determined to mess up, even the littlest bit, of Nurse Ratcheds system. Specifically, when Nurse Ratched walks into the ward she finds McMurphy standing in nothing but his towel with his toothbrush in his hand. Nurse Ratched is becoming “madder and more frustrated than ever” because she expected an aid to have “[issue] a change of greens” to McMurphy (89). Here, Kesey has brought...
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...The majority of individuals in society are often deceived by fallacious beliefs on those suffering with a psychological illness. The novel, One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, written by Ken Kesey, educates readers on the prominence of proper education on mental health, as well as, the severity of the treacherous treatments directed towards the predominantly oppressed group. The renowned tale is narrated by Chief Bromden, who is described as a “deaf and dumb” Native- American, inhabiting the Oregon Psychiatric Institution. Conversely, the protagonist of the novel, Randel McMurphy, is introduced as a polar opposite to the majority of the ward’s patients. McMurphy, distinguished as an American of Irish decent, proclaims to be a well-known gambler,...
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...Ken Kesey was born in 1935 in Colorado. In 1946, his family moved to Oregon, where he become champion in wrestling, both in high school and college (Ken Kesey Biography.” Encyclopedia of World Biography). He attended Stanford University and later in 1960 Kesey volunteered in the experiment organized by U.S army, in which he was using drugs such LSD, mescaline, psilocybin and then reporting on their effect. He also spent some time communicating with patients in the hospital's psychiatric ward. It was an experience which encouraged Ken Kesey to write his 1962 novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest” (the book I’m reading right now), which examined the abuses of the system against the individuals and the theory that patients weren’t insane, but...
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...In the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest the terms hero and villain are not mentioned, but are shown descriptively and symbolically throughout the book. One of the key characters of the story is a christ like figure that gives hope to the other characters. The antagonist of the story has an authoritarian way of running things and will go to extreme measures to get what she wants. Nurse Ratched is the villain because she uses her power to manipulate and oppress the patients since she determines their fate in the ward. An instance where this is shown is on page 64. The quote that supports this is when Harding said, “The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong.” This was said after McMurphy dared to ask...
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...Throughout Ken Kesey’s novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, Nurse Ratched and one of the patients, McMurphy, are constantly at odds with each other. Nurse Ratched controls a firmly disciplined ward where all of the patients have given up the struggle to assert themselves. However, McMurphy was a new patient who was appalled by the other patients’ lack of courage and confidence. None of them stand up for themselves, and so McMurphy decides to change that by making it his mission to render Nurse Ratched powerless. McMurphy constantly opposes Nurse Ratched, challenging her authority and trying to get the others to fight against her rules. However, she realizes that she can keep him at the hospital for as long as she wants if he doesn’t submit....
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...Dyman Fisher Mr. Nardone AP English 24 November 2012 Critical Paper The Novel One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey is narrated by Chief Bromden, a patient in an Oregon psychiatric hospital. The lives of the men in this hospital are dictated by the "Big Nurse" also known as Nurse Ratched. Nurse Ratched is a tyrant who gains power by emasculating the men and carrying off a sexless persona. She has complete dominance of the men and there is no rebellion until a patient by the name of Randall McMurphy comes and disrupts the matriarchal system of the ward. McMurphy is the Christ figure, or tragic hero, of the novel. McMurphy is depicted as a Christ figure when he first arrives at the asylum. He is "baptized by a shower when he first enters...
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...Darren Mah Mrs. Kirkeby English IV Honors 18 August 2014 The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey, narrates the story from the point of view of Chief Bromden, a character known to have cases of hallucinations and shows signs of being outside of reality especially when he begins to see the fog around him. Some of the strengths to using Bromden to narrate the events of the story are because of the fact that he has been “on the ward longer’n anybody” (Kesey 21). He is able to describe to the reader in detail of the daily routine of the patients and their exact times when he notes that “Six-forty-five the shavers buzz and the Acutes line up in alphabetical order at the mirrors…” (Kesey 33) or “Seven-thirty back to the day room” (Kesey 34). By appearing deaf and dumb, Chief Bromden is able to tell the readers about what goes on beyond the patient’s side of the ward when he informs the reader that “the staff usually don’t even notice me; I move around in my chores, and they see right through me…” (Kesey 131)....
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...Darren Mah Mrs. Kirkeby English IV Honors 16 August 2014 In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” by Ken Kesey, R.P McMurphy, the ward’s new rebellious and charismatic patient, is depicted as the story’s Christ figure through various images, events, and character qualities. There are several representations in the story that help support McMurphy’s role as the story’s Christ figure. The author presents McMurphy as a savior for the patients who are incarcerated in Nurse Ratched’s ward. McMurphy pulls them out of the “fog”, which represents Nurse Ratched’s complete control over them, and tries to get them to stick up for themselves. McMurphy wishes for the men to learn to change the strict policies when tells them to “Don’t you see you have to do...
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...Critical analysis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. In the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey invites his reader into the world of the mental hospital, where everything and everyone is under strict dictatorship of Nurse Ratched. She is the one who decides medications, routine, and the destiny of her patients. She uses all of her power to keep them in fear, so they stay under her full control and obey her rules. Everything runs smoothly on her strict routine, until Randle McMurphy comes into the ward. This free-will rebel starts to question the authority of Nurse Ratched and constantly upsets the routines, which leads to a power struggle between the two of them; a power struggle that becomes a battle between wills, a battle between man and woman, between freedom and control. All the way through the story, McMurphy tries to restore the patient‘s masculinity; he shows them how to live the lives that they are too afraid to live; he attempts to teach them how to laugh, to be brave and, most important, to be free. Although, the power struggle with Nurse Ratched does not finish well for McMurphy-- a lobotomy takes away his freedom and, ultimately, his life--in the battle of wills, he is the conqueror. His free-will changes patients from “rabbits” into men(64). His strong nature teaches them how to stand up for themselves, how to find what they believe in and fight for it. Essentially, he teaches them how to be free men. McMurphy sacrificed himself to...
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...Character: Chief Bromden (Chief Broom) is the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Attending for over ten years, he is the longest patient to stay the psychiatric hospital in Oregon. Bromden’s hallucinations brought him into the ward, in which he also gets paranoid and bullied. Because of these hallucinations, he must be medicated. In the beginning of the novel, Bromden reveals how the other patients believe he is deaf and cannot speak, however he is not. In the first chapter, Bromden writes, “They don’t bother not talking out loud about their hate secrets when I’m nearby because they think I’m deaf and dumb. Everybody thinks so. I’m cagey enough to fool them that much” (Kesey 3). Bromden himself does not know if what he is seeing is true or not and lies to his inmates about his disabilities, proving how he is an unreliable narrator....
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